All the Beautiful Lies(49)

“Why do you think they thought Jake was taking advantage of you?”

“How do I know? Gina got it stuck in her sick head, and she told her mother, and her mother believed her, I guess.”

The detective turned to Jake for the first time and asked: “Did you know anything about this?”

“No, I’m hearing this for the first time. It’s totally ridiculous. Alice is, was, my wife’s daughter. That’s all it is. Alice, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Because I didn’t want to bother you. Because it was disgusting.”

“So, Alice,” Detective Metivier said. “What can you tell me about the bite?”

Alice breathed deeply through her nostrils. Some of the anger she’d felt that night was coming back, and for a brief moment she could feel Gina’s flesh between her teeth. “They kept accusing me, and I got upset. We were in the backyard and I decided to just leave. Gina ran over and grabbed me, and I just took her hand and bit it. I wanted her to let go of me, and it worked.”

“But Gina came back that night. She came here and tried to talk with you some more, right?”

“I already told the other policeman all about that. Gina was drunk. She came to apologize and wanted to go swimming as a way to restart our friendship, or something. I told her I didn’t want to, and she left. That’s all that happened.”

“You didn’t go swimming with her?”

“No. I stayed here. If I’d gone swimming with her she probably wouldn’t have drowned. Does her mother think I went swimming with her?”

Instead of answering, the detective asked, “Why didn’t you tell us the whole story when Officer Wilson first questioned you?”

“I told you, because I hadn’t told Jake about what Gina and her mother were saying. I didn’t want to upset him. And it had nothing to do with what happened later. I’m sorry, I should have told you, but I didn’t.”

“That’s okay, Alice,” the detective said, and looked as though she was about to stand.

“So you don’t need my teeth . . . you don’t need to use your . . .”

“I don’t, not if you’re telling me that it was you who left the bite mark on Gina’s hand.” She stood, glancing toward Jake, then back to Alice.

“What does Gina’s mother think? Does she think I had something to do with what happened to Gina?” Alice asked.

“She’s pretty upset. She says that Gina hated swimming, and would never have gone swimming alone in the middle of the night, especially with her hand the way it was.”

“She didn’t hate swimming. Like I told that other detective, we’d been swimming before.”

“Okay,” the detective said. “Thank you, Alice, for clearing up the issue of the bite.” Something in the detective’s voice and body language told Alice that she’d just decided that there was nothing mysterious about Gina’s death. Alice had passed, somehow. But then Detective Metivier turned to Jake and said, “Do you mind walking me out to my car? I have a couple of questions just for you.”

“Oh,” Jake said, then nodded. “Sure.”

Alice was able to watch them talking in the parking lot from the window in Jake’s office. They stood side by side near what was probably the detective’s tan car, something American, maybe a Chevy Celebrity. It was a grey evening, the air filled with fine mist, and Jake, wearing only a sweater, stood with his arms across his body. The detective had put on a white trench coat with a big, floppy collar. She seemed to be mostly listening as Jake spoke. She nodded several times, then began patting at her pockets as though she was getting ready to leave. Jake unfolded his arms and held out a hand for her to shake. Then she was pulling out a pack of cigarettes, offering one to Jake. To Alice’s surprise—he’d quit a couple of years ago—he took the cigarette. The detective lit her own with a lighter then handed the lighter to Jake. After she drove off, Alice watched him stand, greedily smoking the cigarette, and looking out across the road toward the ocean, lined with whitecaps.

When he came back in, his skin was damp with the mist from outside, and he smelled sharply of the cigarette.

“Why’d you smoke one of her cigarettes?” Alice asked.

“You were watching us?”

“I saw you through the window, but you smell like cigarettes.”

He sniffed, and rubbed at his nose. “I was just being polite. She offered.”

“What did she ask you?”

“Let me get a drink, and I’ll tell you. Why didn’t you tell me about Gina and her mother? Jesus, Alice.”

She followed him into the kitchen. “I didn’t tell you because who cares what they think.”

“Maybe I would’ve cared. You have to tell me these things, Alice. I need to be prepared.”

“What did that detective ask you?”

He poured whiskey into a tumbler, then added some ice and soda water. It was what he drank when he was drinking a lot, what he drank all day on Sunday when there were football games on.

“She wanted to know what our relationship was.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her that it was none of her business.”

“Why didn’t you tell—”